Hal Ashby’s Touch of Gold

BY: Claire Connors

The brat pack filmmakers coming up in the early 70s were a tight group, producing some of the best films ever made: Martin Scorsese (The Godfather), Francis Ford Coppola (Star Wars), Steven Spielberg (Jaws), and Hal Ashby…um, Hal Ashby? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, his movies most certainly should.

The Utah-born, California-bred hippy moved to Los Angeles where he started as a film editor for director Norman Jewison, eventually winning an Oscar for Jewison’s race-relations hit film, In the Heat of the Night (1967). Jewison pushed the artistic, sensitive Hal behind the lens where he literally dominated the film houses in the 70s with great, truly important films like Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), and his Oscar-winner for best Directing, 1978’s Coming Home.

Director Amy Scott clearly recognized a good story in the underappreciated and misunderstood Hal Ashby. Her documentary, Hal, debuted at Sundance earlier this year and features interviews with his fellow directors, his actors, his admirers, and the artists he continues to inspire, including Jeff Bridges, Roseanna Arquette, Judd Apatow, Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, and Allison Anders. Perhaps now the name Hal Ashby will be met with the reverence it deserves.

Hal opens on September 7^th. In the meantime, check out his wonderful films, below.

Harold and Maude

A flop when it hit movie screens in 1971, this hilarious film about a spoiled rich boy obsessed with death eventually became one of the first cult hits, showing in some art houses for years. Bud Cort stars as Harold, a ridiculously self-absorbed teenager whose mother is determined to marry him off, so someone else can take care of him. He meets Maude (played by the deliciously devilish Ruth Gordon) at a funeral, ‘natch, and they fall in love. The problem is, she’s 79 and 11 months old, and has no intention of living past 80. It’s a heartbreaker, for sure, but also a heart warmer, with a life-affirming message. And of course, the sweetly familiar music by Cat Stevens only makes this film more charming.

The Last Detail

Jack Nicholson and Otis Young play two Navy MPs ordered to accompany an innocent, young offender to prison. The kid, played by the adorkable, rubber-faced Randy Quaid, is so pitiful, the more experienced military men decide to “pop his cherry” and show him his first—and last—good time in New York City. Much alcohol is consumed and many women are kissed, as the men get dangerously close to making a decision that could ruin all of their lives.

Shampoo

Robert Towne (Chinatown) and its star Warren Beatty wrote this comedic drama about George, a straight thirtysomething hairdresser who is trapped in a sexy, alluring lifestyle that’s he now finds unbearable. He’s sleeping with almost every woman whose head he touches, including his salon owner’s wife (Lee Grant), mistress (Julie Christie), and daughter (played by the baby-faced Carrie Fisher), but his world is falling spectacularly apart. Will George get his own salon and find true love? This is 1975 so his chances are as slim as his bellbottomed jeans.

Coming Home

At the time of its release, Coming Home was a game changer for many reasons. One, it was decidedly antiwar. It starred Midnight Cowboy‘s Jon Voight as Luke, an outspoken and understandably pissed off paraplegic Vietnam War vet, learning to live in a wheelchair. The Veteran’s hospital where he stays is also where Sally (Jane Fonda) volunteers while she waits for her own soldier man to return home. Sally and Luke fall deeply in love and in a cinematic first, we see her reach orgasm through oral sex. Great oral sex! Once Sally’s PSTD-afflicted husband (Bruce Dern) returns home, things go sour but this realistic slice of post-Vietnam era America stays true.